


[NEVERLAND]

by Ghostietea



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Pre-Canon, canon typical child neglect and abuse, creeping dread that things are going to get worse, found family but not in a good way, nothing graphic though, set in the lead up to the black paint scene, the inherent horror of being baby Yuki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26067706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostietea/pseuds/Ghostietea
Summary: There was a room. It was cold, and sterile, and blank, the pale color of the walls only amplifying the feeling of desolation. The room was barren of all but a few basic affects placed about in the vague semblance of a lived space; some decor here and there, a low table, and two sitting mats.There was a room, and in it were two beings that looked like children.
Relationships: Sohma Yuki & Sohma Akito
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	[NEVERLAND]

There was a room. It was cold, and sterile, and blank, the pale color of the walls only amplifying the feeling of desolation. The room was barren of all but a few basic affects placed about in the vague semblance of a lived space; some decor here and there, a low table, and two sitting mats.

There was a room, and in it were two beings that looked like children.

They almost could have been twins; both possessed the same haircut, the same clothes, the same brand of uncanny beauty, the same otherworldly aura. Only if one looked closely could they guess otherwise, could they see that one of the two was a bit taller, a bit older, but not by so much that it was striking. 

The older one had dark hair and sharper features. He spoke like an adult and made grand promises he couldn't keep, but he was special, the  _ most  _ special of all. The younger one had soft grey hair and eyes, like a washed out version of his companion. His voice was near silent and he had been told he was special too, just as special.

[Special as long as the other said so]

This was Yuki's world.

[___]

Yuki couldn't remember exactly when the first time his mom didn't come back was, but he could still see the scene in his mind.

Akito had left, bidding him goodnight and leaving him to wait for his mom to pick him up. He couldn't see outside but he knew it was late. And it just got later, time dragging on in a numb, indistinct march as Yuki held his tiny knees to his chest and tried to keep the empty from swallowing him whole. It could have been hours or minutes, his limbs felt weak and his eyes dry but he couldn't just sleep. It struck him for the first time that she wasn't coming back, maybe she never was.

A small eternity passed before the footsteps came, shuffling towards the door, so soft he normally wouldn't have noticed. Yuki blinked back not yet shed tears, daring to hope. But when the door slid open the person standing in the dark hall was far too small to be his mom. Akito looked almost ghostly as he swept across the room to Yuki's side, pale and weak in his too large kimono. 

"A maid told me your mom didn't come." He said, his voice matter of a fact like he was listing off the days of the week. Yuki was happy though, happy to just not be alone. He collapsed into Akito, arms wrapped around him, searching for some drop of comfort as he started shaking uncontrollably.

"Mama- Mama left me." Yuki choked out.

"Shh, sh," Akito stroked his hair, "of course it was going to be this way." Yuki stiffened, a trickle of shock coursing through his veins.

"The zodiac mothers aren't worth trash," he continued, "they just want to cash out and leave, they resent us for being sacred, for being  _ chosen. _ " Yuki was crying now and when he pulled away for a second he saw a flash of concern in Akito's eyes. 

"No, ah, Yuki don't be sad I didn't mean it that way. You're special, you don't need her." There was a crack of broken desperation in his voice and Yuki swore for a second that Akito was speaking to someone else, his eyes distant and looking straight past Yuki. "We don't need them, we are far to good to care about those who would abandon us from the start." This time Akito leaned forward to embrace Yuki in a small gesture of warmth as his sobbing stilled.

He spoke quieter now "You have the Juunishi, you have  _ me, _ that's the only bond you need, the only one that will be strong enough to stay. Yuki, you are not alone." Yuki was completely still as Akito sat back and slowly stood, extending a hand to Yuki. He shakily took it and let himself be pulled up, as obedient as a doll as his God started to take him from the room.

"You and I are the same so you'll be fine. That woman hated you from the start, she never cared and you shouldn't either." Akito continued as they walked down the hall, hands still intertwined. Yuki felt like the air in his lungs was replaced with lead, but at least he wasn't crying anymore. "Even if she never comes back you won't be hurt by her anymore.

"Hurt?" Yuki questioned in a tiny voice "Mama-"

"Hm? Of course she did." Akito's grip on his wrist momentarily tightened uncomfortably as Yuki struggled to make sense of what he said. If he was older Yuki may have put together the tiny flashes in his mind, flashes of voices shouting down the hall, of the occasional slip of bruises or bandage hidden under thick robes, of the days Akito didn't show up at all. But he wasn't older. 

When they stopped it was in Akito's bedroom. Yuki had been there a few times before.

[It was a room just as empty and blank as the other]

He sank to the floor, so tired he almost didn't notice when Akito pulled a sleeping mat and a single blanket a few feet away from the other one, identical if for a few scattered plushes thrown atop the already existing mat. As if knowing he was too far gone to think, Akito guided him to the second mat, and he collapsed into the blanket.

"This is my space, so it just makes sense that it's yours too." Akito said, his chipper tone a far cry from the mood of earlier. "You can stay as long as you need, this can be your home if you have no other to go back to." He lay down with his back to Yuki on the opposing mat, and Yuki wondered if he looked as tiny in the large, barren room as Akito did. "You'll always have me" he whispered before going completely quiet.

It felt almost safe to have someone else with Yuki, but it was an empty comfort for an empty boy, seeking hollow solace from another who would break apart before he could ever save Yuki. The best they could be was broken children holding together in a twisted solidarity.

When Yuki drifted to sleep he didn't dream.

[___]

Soon Yuki's life was swallowed completely by that empty room. Day and night blurred, he couldn't know how many days passed between when his mom got him and when she left again and again. The days he was left slowly grew more in numbers until his already unfamiliar bedroom felt like it belonged to a stranger. His home was not his home, his family not his family. They were only indifferent. Yuki started to wonder if Akito was his family, that would make more sense, the God felt more like his kin than those others ever had, for good or bad.

The drumming of the days was monotonous, the room still blank and empty. Yuki felt hollow, not sad but empty. Akito, for his occasional temper, was not all bad, but Yuki was sure he was hollow too. There was nothing for either of them besides an empty world were they'd never grow up. Akito had more than Yuki, he spoke sometimes to the other Juuni, but still the empty room was his to begin with, and he was so insistent that they were the same. They could be of course, Yuki didn't know anymore, there was nobody left to indicate if he was anything more than an extension of Akito. 

Their days were a rotation of the same Sohma approved activities, painting, calligraphy, reading, the like. Yuki liked painting, but it was starting to become a bore, just like everything else. The maid brought the supplies, the old one with a low bun and cold words. When she spoke she ignored Yuki, like he was just a fixture of the house, and talked only of traditions, propriety, and bonds to Akito. It was still burned into Yuki's brain, the day they had done something different. Shigure had gifted Akito a tape with some anime on it, and he had dragged Yuki to another room to watch it, a warm place that looked like someone lived there, maybe one of the Juuni? They ended up only half paying attention to it, consumed with some game or another that Yuki recalled was fun. Akito was laughing as the maid slid the door open behind him, high and light. There was a flame of disappointment in her eyes when she turned on him that frightened Yuki. 

"Akito-sama," she said calmly, feigning kindness, "the most respected head of the family cannot be speaking in such a tone or  _ pitch _ , it's annoying and uncouth you are much better than that." Akito looked like he was about to retort before the maid knelt down, speaking over him. "I only say so because you are most special, we expect the best. And who gave you that infernal cartoon, it's much too girly, some instigator must be causing problems, not your fault of course." Yuki expected defiance, but Akito's obedient nod shook him more than that ever could. Then it was over, they left and never did anything like it again. The maid had never met Yuki's eyes once.

And so the days went, a loop as endless as the zodiac curse. An emptiness so vast Yuki could be lost forever.

[___]

There were cracks in the walls. Tiny, spidery lines spreading like disease through the white expanse. Yuki could map them if he wanted, but they were bothering him more these days.

[There were cracks in the wall]

Yuki was struck more and more by how  _ wrong  _ the blankness was. From his dim understanding of the outside he knew this wasn't the type of place for children. There were no toys, colors, or adult supervision. He was sure those were all very important things. The room was  _ wrong _ .

Akito would tell him otherwise, but when he spoke it was not how children spoke. Akito was a dichotomy these days; he was a child only in the worst ways, selfish, mercurial, and ignorant. But the rest of the time he was an imitation of an adult; from the false maturity of his speech to the overabundance of power and status he possessed. He only truly seemed a child when he cried, letting out all the too big emotions clumsily stuffed into his tiny body to create some semblance of the grown person the Sohmas pretended he was. 

[There were cracks in the wall]

Akito didn't even pretend there was nothing wrong anymore, but he still refused to see it as a problem. They were special beings, they were not  _ really  _ children, so of course they wouldn't be treated as such. He told himself this was right.

[There were cracks in the wall]

New years came and went. Yuki saw the one said to be his brother. He went to say hello, but before he spoke that one whispered in Shigure's ear.

He'd asked what Yuki's name was.

[There were cracks in the wall]

Akito had gotten more unpredictable. It wasn't unbearable but he'd snap easier, and now Yuki woke almost every night he stayed at the main house to see Akito gone from his mat and the door open, one of the older Juuni cradling the child as he cried. Sometimes he'd say scary things, always in this weird tone like he was copying someone else without quite having the emotional delivery behind the line down. Akito was  _ wrong _ , he always had been, something was very not right. Yuki hoped someone would see, that someone would do something to help. But Akito was God, and seeing him as less than perfect was blasphemy. Still he hoped, though he knew no words to help himself, Akito was all he had, if something happened then Yuki-

[There were cracks in the wall]

Yuki's breathing was worse, maybe it was the air in the room. It seemed heavier, weighing him down, maybe it was going bad. Maybe the outside air couldn't reach this pocket reality in the quietest part of the world and they'd slowly suffocate. He coughed more now, which Akito complained about at length. His lungs ached. 

[There were cracks in the wall]

The room was smaller than before, still large enough to be lonely but impossibly smaller. Its claustrophobic nature just made it harder to breathe.

[There were cracks in the wall]

Akito had been gone when he woke and still was not back. Yuki was in the room, sitting neatly at the table, a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was new paint today, or maybe it was ink. The maid had brought only black today, and Yuki absentmindedly stirred in with a brush, watching the reflections of light dance and scatter on the surface. Its darkness was so different from the searing, desolate bright of the room, and he wondered, for a minute, if he'd like it better.

**[There were cracks in the wall]**

**Author's Note:**

> • Happy sad baby Yuki eve!  
> • I saw the blank negative space used in the set design pre black paint scene and ran with it and wrote a pseudo horror fic  
> • on a similar point I like how the room before is really pale and brightly lit in contrast  
> • this is going off the manga visuals btw  
> • this was really experimental I liked writing it  
> • a lot of this is based on headcanon  
> You can find me on Twitter and Tumblr @ghostietea! I appreciate any comments or kudos


End file.
